Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a recording apparatus and a recording method.
Description of the Related Art
Inkjet recording apparatuses are known as liquid discharge apparatuses which record images by discharging liquid such as ink on a record medium such as paper. Recently, to achieve improvement of quality of printed characters and high definition of images by suppressing ink blurs, inkjet recording apparatuses employ a method of applying a pretreatment solution that is to react with ink, in advance on a recording medium (recording paper). According to this method, a pretreatment solution which causes a coloring material contained in ink to be insolubilized or agglomerated is applied, and ink droplets containing the coloring material are then discharged by using a recording head. Thus, agglomeration of the coloring material in ink is produced on a recording sheet. Accordingly, occurrence of an ink blur may be suppressed, achieving high-quality characters and high-definition images. As a method of applying a pretreatment solution, a method using an applying roller and a method of, like ink, discharging the pretreatment solution on a recording sheet by using a discharge head have been proposed.
The method of discharging a pretreatment solution by using a discharge head makes it possible to arrange the pretreatment solution only at or near a position at which an ink droplet is discharged. However, to surely agglomerate a coloring material contained in ink, it is necessary to discharge the pretreatment solution in advance at a position at which an ink droplet is to be discharged on a recording sheet. To do this, in consideration of a discharge misalignment error of an ink droplet, it is necessary to discharge the pretreatment solution in a wide area around a position at which an ink droplet is discharged. To discharge the pretreatment solution in a wide area as described above, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-276400 discloses a method of expanding data about discharge of ink droplets and discharging a pretreatment solution on the basis of the obtained data about discharge of the pretreatment solution.
In contrast, for inkjet recording apparatuses, an increase in speed of a recording operation as well as an increase in quality of images is desired. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-205465 discloses a method in which an organic acid is used for the pretreatment solution in order that ink is more rapidly agglomerated and fixed on a recording sheet.
However, when an organic acid is used for the pretreatment solution, the organic acid contained in the pretreatment solution that remains on a recording sheet may produce a phenomenon (hereinafter referred to as a “yellowing phenomenon”) in which the recording sheet becomes yellow over time. This phenomenon is likely to be noticeable especially when, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-276400, a pretreatment solution is discharged in a wide area around a position at which an ink droplet is discharged or a necessary amount or more of the pretreatment solution is discharged in order to surely obtain the agglomeration action. That is, a large amount of the organic acid may remain on a recording sheet, and a yellowing phenomenon may conspicuously occur, resulting in reduction in image quality.